


Face the Music

by perniciousLizard



Series: Fired Up and Bone Weary [30]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Music, trombone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 04:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9965069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perniciousLizard/pseuds/perniciousLizard
Summary: Grillby asks Sans if he was ever in a band.  Sans tries to remember how to play a romantic trombone solo.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Something short while I'm working on something longer.

In a distant part of the house, Grillby heard Papyrus’ loud, angry yell.  Papyrus had a multitude of different yells, and this was one of his angriest.  

Grillby sighed.  He hadn’t been asleep yet, but he had been drifting off and now he had to start the process over again.

He felt the weight of Sans’ head lift off his chest and Grillby watched his blurry figure head over to the door.  The closet door.  Sans picked up the trombone off the floor next to it and poked his head into the closet. Grillby heard, clear, outside the _bedroom_ door, the unmistakable _w_ _omp_ _-W_ _OMP_ of Sans’ trombone.

Papyrus screamed.

Trombone.  Huh. They had been married for twenty years, and Grillby suddenly understood.  Maybe he’d figured it out before, but his life was so full of skeleton puns, they all blended together after a while.  

Sans ambled back over to the bed, laughing to himself.  

“Do you know any real songs?”  Grillby asked, suddenly curious.  

“huh?  oh, hey, you’re awake.  'morning, grillbz.”  

“…you just played a brass instrument five feet away from me.”  

“hope there was enough pot roast leftover for a snack later.”

“……what?”

“what?  thought we was just saying whatever popped into our skulls.  like, free association.”  Sans was laughing.

“There’s some roast left, but the kids drank all the gravy so you’ll have to eat it dry.”  

Sans settled back in next to him.  "bet i can find something to put on it.“  

Pot roast and ketchup.  It could be…okay.  Grillby decided not to think about it. "Fine.  Do you know how to play any songs?”  

“what, like, trombone solos?”

“Anything.”

“oh.  wait. heh.  i get it.  i know what this is.  lots of guys are into musicians.  you’re dreaming of me playing a romantic trombone solo for you.”  

Grillby had just only heard him play sound effects.  One time he had listened to Sans demonstrate to Soozen how to make fart sounds on a trombone.  She applauded every single one, so Grillby hadn’t been able to make himself put a stop to it.

“i think i’ve still got some sheet music with the rest of my stuff, but i can’t just whip out a sweet solo after, uh.  jeez.”  He stared into space.  "that’s a lotta years.“

"Were you in a band?”  

Sans was looking him over.  "yeah, i can tell now.  i bet you dated loads of guys with guitars.  or maybe you were just big into brass.“  

"If I wanted brass that much, I wouldn’t have married a skeleton.”  

Sans pressed his face into Grillby’s arm, shaking with laughter.  

“Hm?”

“oh, uh, yeah,” he said, muffled.  "someone at the lab put together a band.  we played the office parties.“  He sat up a little.  "work meetings. in the cafeteria, sometimes.”

“You must have been popular.”

“you bet. everyone loved it when we’d all get in the elevator and hide our instruments in our inventory, and then once someone got in and the doors closed, we’d whip ‘em out and play something nice, just for them.”

“I’m surprised you’re still alive.”

“when’d you think i got so good at dodging?”  

Grillby finally laughed.  "A little band of scientists.“  It was charming, actually, imagining it.  

"well.  the leader, she was the janitor, actually.  she was real good.  wrote some songs for us, even.”

The lab when Sans worked in it sounded so professional, with office meetings and janitors and bitter interpersonal politics.  Grillby pictured Sans in a lab coat wearing his glasses, even though he hadn’t needed them back then.  Adorable.

“let me think. one of 'em was called 'i’m not your mom so clean up your own damn dishes.’”  

“I can almost imagine what it sounded like.”

“she came up with titles that really evoked something, right?  then there was, uh, 'everyone hates you, steve.’”

“Steve left his dishes?”

“he was ok there but you don’t want to know what kind of stuff he thought was ok to dump down the sinks.  i guess he thought drains were magical portals to nowhere which i guess would be possible but they sure weren’t what we had.”  

“He deserved to be hated.”

“my fave of hers was like a blend of the two.  she called it 'if i was your mom, steve, i’d disown you.’  everyone in the lab liked that one.  she had this long clarinet solo.”  

“I saw an ad in the paper for someone trying to start a band.”

“you think i should audition?  i saw that.  they were looking for a bassist and a drummer, but who doesn’t want a trombone guy for their garage band.”

Grillby nodded.  If it was a terrible enough idea, Sans might actually go and do it.

“eh.  but i’ll find my music and play something for you, sometime, if you want.”

“Thank you.”

–

A loud brass wail outside woke Grillby abruptly from a deep sleep.  He woke so suddenly instead of sitting up in alarm, he turned into a pillar of fire, scorching their bedroom ceiling.   He fumbled around, trying to remember where his glasses were and what legs were, when the sound came again.  This time, it was followed by other noises.  Notes?  Was that a…song?

The noise was coming from the actual outside of the house, he realized, not just from the hall outside the bedroom.  

_Sans, why?_

Grillby stumbled to his barely-formed feet.  He’d formed next to his pajamas, in his haste, so he wrapped a blanket around his waist in case Sans had woken up the rest of the house.  When he pushed aside the blinds, the sun hit him and he realized everyone else was probably already out.

They had a small porch off their master bedroom, so he stepped outside and leaned over the railing.  The yelling he had been planning died before it left him.  Sans had a full suit on.  And a charming hat, like the kind mobsters wore in black and white movies.  

Sans knew him too well.  He looked too charming for Grillby to be angry.  

Sans blew him a kiss and started to play.  


End file.
